Two Cards = Success!

Let me get the whining out of the way, right now!! Once again, Blogger has me completely discombobulated as to how in the heck it orders the photo uploads. A while ago they switched from "how I listed them" to "reverse order" for some reason, and once I'd trained myself to list the images in the opposite order I wanted them posted, just now Blogger decided to mix it up again and they were totally out of order. Totally. I give up. Note to self - you get what you pay for. I am trainable, so I'll just go with the flow here ...

As the title of this post so aptly declares, this was a banner weekend for me! First up, here is this year's Chanukkah card:

I used the PTI Mazel Tov set for the images, and PTI's shimmer blue card stock along with SU's Shimmer White card stock. I'll show you that shimmer in a sec. First, I have to tell you there are a gazillion ways to spell Chanukkah, because it is a transliteration from the Hebrew, meaning you spell it like it sounds. Thus the many different spellings, and neither of the spellings in this set match how *I* spell it, but hopefully no one will notice.

I embossed the menorah and the dreidel on shimmer white with Versamark and some very yummy blue embossing powder I picked up on one of my shopping trips with June. It is by Stampendous, it is called Pearl Lustre Sapphire, and I am in love with it! It was so nice to have something besides Silver or Gold to use on the Chanukkah cards, too.

Now for some details:

This is my attempt to show you the shimmer of these papers. The whole thing is just so, well, shimmery. It came out exactly how I'd hoped it would!

It is difficult to see the beautiful embossed color of the EP, but trust me, if you see this stuff in the store, you want it!

And yes, I colored in the individual candles, using SU markers.

Here is a close-up of the dreidel. I embossed it on shimmer white, then colored it with Copics and cut it out. Note how the ligher color of brown kinda schmeared the blue embossing a little in the center. I am not so sure one should use alcohol inks with embossing, but maybe that was just incompetance on my part. From not-so-close-up, it really does look fine. We are our own worst critics, right? ;-)

That ribbon on the dreidel is from my stash of Blue Ribbon, and I used almost all of it. Yay!

I also embossed the sentiment with the same blue EP on the front of the cards. I really like how this one came out!

I wrote and addressed all of my Chanukkah AND Happy Holiday cards, and they are all stamped and ready to mail tomorrow. All done!

And here is the birthday card all my December birthday customers will get. It came together really quickly, too! I started out by opening (!) my package of SU Frosty Day DS papers, and I selected this really busy design because I liked the green, orange and brown combination.

I just futzed with it for a while and came up with the base and orange strip parts of the layout, then I stamped the words from the Celebrate Everything set in Tangerine Tango on Whisper White. I decided the white was too stark (as I usually do) and I pulled out the 'burst' stamp from Bursting with Joy and stamped it in Kiwi Kiss, stamping off on my paper before I stamped it over the word, just to soften it a bit. I actually lined up the white piece with the edge of the Choc Chip when I layered it, and just butted it up against the brown layer under the orange strip (which, by the way, is the reverse side of the main paper.) And if you followed any of that, you are a better man than I am.

The ribbon is the narrow Choc Chip from a mini catalog or two ago, and the brads were a last-minute addition to make it look more finished. I am pretty happy with it! Aaaaaand, these have been written, addressed and stamped, and added to the pile o'mail in the Kitchen.

Wow, all caught up. This might be a first! Woo-hoo! Now I am off to figure out what to do for dinner, then I'll start in on my scrappin'! Thanks for stopping by!